| Restless | ||
| Director: | Amos Kollek |  |
| Country: | Israel/Canada/Germany/France/Belgium | |
| Year: | 2008 | |
| Language: | English, Hebrew | |
| Runtime: | 100 minutes | |
| Rating: | 14A | |
| Principal Cast: | Moshe Ivgy, Ran Danker, Karen Young, Phyllis Somerville | |
| Trailer: | -- | |
| SCREENING TIMES | |||
| Thursday, March 5, 2009 | 7:00 PM | Art Gallery of Windsor | Tickets: $10 Art Gallery Gift Shop |
Award-winning Israeli filmmaker Amos Kollek returns to the territory of his renowned trilogy (Sue, Fiona and Bridget) with Restless, a provocative film about a man's struggle to survive as he searches for redemption in New York City.
Years ago, Moshe became fed up with his life and tired of his pregnant wife, his job, his country and its inhabitants. Doubting his paternal instincts, he left his family and his Israeli hometown for bigger and better opportunities in New York City, and never once looked back. Alas, twenty-one years in the big city have not been as fruitful as Moshe had anticipated, and he now peddles junk on the streets, incapable of even paying the rent for his unkempt basement apartment. Moshe's only satisfaction is his poetry and a female bartender named Yolanda (and her young son), who works in the shabby bar where he frequently does ersatz poetry readings. One day, however, he is shaken by the news that his estranged, motherless, ex-soldier son, Tzach, wants to meet him in the city. This distressing news causes Moshe to confront the fact that he may have made a terrible, perhaps unredeemable mistake. By a twist of fate, he and his newly reunited son soon find themselves on a collision course.
But Moshe's shame and dysfunctional paternal relationship is only the background to this film's immensely powerful drama. At its core, Restless is about a father-son relationship between two generations of Israelis and the changing social values in both Israel and the Western world. The performances, delivered in both English and Hebrew, are consistently unsettling, releasing feelings of alienation and an abundance of raw emotion as father and son look for a bond, a home and a way to connect with one another.
Dimitri Eipides
